Invasion Of Malaya Research Paper

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The Japanese Invasion of Malaya
During World War II there were many major battles and invasions, but there were also many battles that are not talked about much. There are not many people who know much about the Japanese invasion of Malaya. This is because this invasion happened only a day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The invasion into Malaya began on 8 December, 1941, and moved very quickly. The armies assigned to defend Malaya were not prepared for an invasion of that scale. The invasion of Malaya was very important, but this event would not be important if there were not civilians like my great grandfather, John Anderson.
In the late 1930’s John Anderson was currently living in Scotland, when he decided that he wanted to become a rubber planter. He became a trainee rubber planter for Sime Darby & Co., which took him to Malaya at a young age. At the time of World War II, Malaya was producing 38% of the world’s rubber. This created a very good reason for the Japanese to invade. The Japanese wanted to have access to the resources, but they were also in the middle of war with China. This made people believe that there was no chance of the Japanese trying to invade Malaya. Once World War II had started, my great grandfather was debating if he should move his family to Singapore to keep them safe. This decision was made for them in the middle of December, 1941 when the Japanese started to invade. The commander of the army was General Yamashita, and included over 60,000 soldiers. Many of the soldiers had experience from fighting in the war against China. “The defenses in Malaya and Singapore were equally unprepared for war. Coordination between the ground troops and the small Royal Air Force contingent in the region was poor, ...

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...tually it was decided that they would move to a new plantation so that he could continue planting rubber.
The citizens in this war made a huge contribution during the invasion of Malaya. Without their help this event would not have been nearly as important. There were people who stayed behind, and risked their lives so that they could put out fires in Malaya and Singapore. There would have been a very different outcome if people were only thinking about themselves, and not thinking about protecting their country. As Clarence Darrow says “You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom”(BrainyQuotes). I find it important that we recognize that it is not just all the famous leaders who do all the work during a war, but it is the people of that country who volunteer their efforts in order to protect the home that they live in.

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